


Mercer

by akane42me



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 04:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12548624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akane42me/pseuds/akane42me
Summary: Written for the MFU Scrapbook Halloween 2017 ChallengeA spooky little Halloween story for Bonniejean1953.A little slashy, and lots of Illya!Thank you for the wonderful prompt!I hope you enjoy your story!





	Mercer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bonniejean1953](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=bonniejean1953).



> Written for the MFU Scrapbook Halloween 2017 Challenge
> 
> A spooky little Halloween story for Bonniejean1953.  
> A little slashy, and lots of Illya!  
> Thank you for the wonderful prompt!  
> 
> 
>  I hope you enjoy your story!

**Mercer**

 

"Trick or treat!” Marlene Manning’s voice, sugary enough to make his teeth itch.

“Sweets for the sweet.” Napoleon’s voice, just as sugary.

_What the_ – Illya put his newspaper down and twisted around in his chair.

Napoleon and Marlene Manning sat next to each other at the table behind him. Napoleon was offering her a bite of his pumpkin pie. She had her mouth open, closing in on it, when he pulled it away at the last second and popped it into his mouth.

“Mmm. Delicious.”

“Napoleon!” Marlene laughed and gave him a playful shove. “You’re supposed to give me the treat.”

“Happy Halloween.” He laughed and gave her a fast kiss on the cheek. “That was sweeter than the pie.”

_One week. Less than a week._

Six days ago, Napoleon had declared his feelings for Illya, and Illya had said it was about time.

Illya pushed back from his table, got up, threw Napoleon a scowl, and left the cafeteria.

_It only took him six days._

* * * *

 

Fifteen minutes later, Napoleon entered Illya’s office, a file folder in hand.

Illya, busy at his typewriter, glanced up, returned the frown on his partner’s face, and kept typing.

“You were flirting with that girl,” he said. “You agreed you were going to stop doing that. Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about me?” The typewriter dinged. He yanked the carriage return arm and resumed typing.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean, have _you_ changed your mind about _me_? Already? After only a week?”

“Napoleon, I can’t begin to understand—”

“I can tell you how to begin,” Napoleon said quietly. “Begin by telling me this: Who is Mercer?”

Illya stopped typing. He looked up, a rush of heat flooding his face. “Where did you hear that name?”

Napoleon dropped the file folder on Illya’s typewriter. “This was on my desk this morning, folded into a bird. I could see the writing through the paper. I opened it. It belongs to you.”

Illya opened the folder. Inside was an eight-inch square of cream-colored paper, creased and re-creased in numerous asymmetrical angles, its message written in perfectly formed script:

 

_Dear Illya,_

_Unfold your wings. You know you want to._

_Love,_

_Mercer_

 

Illya closed his eyes. The origami swan on Mercer’s desk. He’d seen it as he left the bedroom. He stood and went to Napoleon. “Let’s sit down. I have something to tell you.”

* * * *

 

 

 

“This happened during my time at Cambridge…”

 

It was a Friday evening. I’d gone to a downtrodden pub with the intention of having a quiet drink while I completed my studies. It was inexpensive, and more importantly, it was situated several blocks from the Halloween revelry in the square outside my apartment. I had several theorems to left to work through in preparation for an exam the following Monday morning. I’d settled myself in for a night of study rather disconsolately, choosing a table in the far corner and barricading myself with my stack of books and papers. No one had invited me to join them at the bonfire, so I was in no mood for company. I did not think I would be able to read, but I did, and my misery faded as I worked my way through the pages.

At some point, the bell over the pub door tinkled. The autumn wind carried a bit of the distant shouting and laughter from the Halloween festivities inside. It caught my attention, and I looked up. I saw no one coming through the door and decided it had been an inebriated party-goer, taking a wrong turn, leaving without entering. I looked at the clock. I had been lost in my work for over two hours. I returned to my book, feeling annoyed to have to return to the previous page and re-read it to regain my train of thought.

“Look at you, with your weary glass and cigarette, and your lips all pouty from whispering all those big words to yourself.”

I jumped, startled by the smiling fellow standing in front of my little table. I was so immersed in my reading that I had not noticed his approach. He was of medium height, dark-haired and dressed in Guy Fawkes period fashion. My hunch about a reveler coming into the pub from the festivities had been correct, after all. I didn’t recognize him. But he knew me, because he greeted me by name.

“Hello, Illya. You can’t intend to spend Halloween evening like this. All those books. Poor darling. You need to be rescued.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “This is embarrassing, but – how do you know me?”

“No need to apologize.” He put a hand on my mathematics text and smiled at me.

“Are you in one of my classes? I’m sorry, but –”

“You’re doing it again.”

“What—”

He bent down, so his face was level with mine. “Apologizing.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

He laughed. I smiled despite my bad mood.

“My name is Mercer,” he said.

“Well, Mercer, what brings you in here? The festivities are out there.”

“I told you. I came to rescue you.”

“I assure you, I’m not in need of rescuing.” I indicated my notes. “I’ve got to learn these—”

Mercer pushed my books aside and sat on the table. He maneuvered himself to face me, his legs dangling between my knees. I leaned back and drew my arms up, crossing them against my chest.

“You’re drunk,” I said.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” He reached out and took my right hand in his. He slowly pulled my arm away from my chest and lowered my hand onto his left knee. I looked at him, my mouth agape.

He laughed. “If you could see the look on your face.” He nodded at my left arm, which was still riveted to my chest. “Your turn. Unfold your other wing.”

I can’t explain it. My hand, seemingly of its own accord, unbent and landed on Mercer’s other knee.

I remember him whispering in my ear about his father’s cottage near the Suffolk coast, no one was there, we would not be intruding, just for the night—

 

Before I knew it, I had borrowed my roommate’s car with the promise to have it back by ten o’clock the next morning, and we were off, driving east through the countryside to Ipswich and beyond, Mercer all the while beside me, laughing, joking, pointing out the turns.

As I drove, he asked me question upon question about myself, my studies. Eventually I was offering topics of my own – books, music, my childhood, my thoughts about being alone in Cambridge with no friends but my professors.

After an hour and a half’s drive, we turned off the road onto a private drive guarded by a massive set of wrought iron gates, taller than two men. In the light of the car’s headlamps, I saw they were intricately decorated in swirls of leaves and flowers. One of the gates had been pulled open, allowing us to pass through. I followed the winding drive which took us up a long, slowly rising hill. Lights glowed against the sky at the top.

It was no cottage. It was a mansion. Four floors tall, so wide I could not take it all in. The entrance was built of twin doors, double high, double wide, made of dark, deeply polished wood, lit on either side and above by six great carriage lanterns, throwing welcome light into the black night.

We went inside and travelled down a long, high-ceilinged hall with rooms opening off to either side, and finally came to a great room at the rear of the mansion.

I stopped in the doorway, astounded. Mercer said mildly, “I see things are ready for us.”

Before us stood a dining table large enough to accommodate twenty people, lit by tall, tiered candelabras. On one end, two places had been set, along with platters of meats, breads, cheeses, and fruits, and several bottles of red wine.

A massive fireplace was on the right wall, a good blaze already burning, surrounded by several oversized chairs. Two vast French doors centered the wall on the left. Nothing was visible outside.

“I thought you said no one was here,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

Mercer laughed and took me by the arm, leading me to the French doors. “No one is here – but things can be readied with little notice.”

“How did you –”

“I took care of it while you were speaking to your roommate. It’s all quite simple, really. Now look outside. Oh! What was I thinking? It’s night time. Well. Anyway. On a clear day, you can see so far from up here, you’d think the sky and the sea are one thing. It’s quite beautiful.”

Then Mercer was steering me to the table. I was ravenous and thirsty. The wine went straight to my head. Mercer kept my glass filled, and we talked non-stop. I didn’t think there was anything left to talk about after the long drive, but we talked until the wine was gone, our plates long empty. We moved to the chairs by the fire, and there was another bottle of wine on a side table. Before long, that was gone as well.

I must have fallen asleep. Mercer was whispering in my ear. I opened my eyes. I was lying in a featherbed, Mercer with me. His face hovered above mine, his hands working at my shirt buttons. I sat up, pushing him away, drawing my arms to my chest as I had done earlier at the pub. I looked around. A large room. Large bed. Large wardrobe. Large windows, reflecting the small glow of one candle resting on a large writing desk flanked by large bookcases filled with leather bound books.

Mercer smiled at me and placed his hands on my arms.

“What you do with your arms, it’s like the Oriental art of folding, do you know of it? Origami? You have folded your wing this way, and your other wing that way. And you’ve folded your legs beneath you, as well. You are protecting your secret, aren’t you? You will allow me to unfold you, won’t you? Yes…see how? This arm goes… there… and this one goes… there… and your neck, it bends, lower, lower, while your back goes…yes… and your leg must lie this way, and now we will unfold the other one, away from… and now your secret is revealed, yes?”

He slid a hand behind my neck and applied pressure here and there, searching for knotted muscles at the base of my skull, slowly loosening them. Then he bent his face to mine and kissed me.

I closed my eyes and did not move. I felt comfortable and safe. Unafraid. Unembarrassed. But I knew I’d had entirely too much wine to be thinking clearly, and did not want to go farther, not that night. I put my hand on his cheek, whispered his name, and asked him to stop.

Mercer brushed my hair from my brow, smoothing it back into place. He sighed and got out of bed. I heard the scrape of the chair at his writing desk. Paper rustled, and I drifted asleep listening to the quiet, solitary sound of a pen scratching, pausing, scratching, pausing.

I awoke in the pre-dawn hour when the sky was still grey, thinking I had heard a noise from somewhere below, outside. I sat up in bed and discovered I was alone in the room. I felt wide awake and well rested, but unsure of what to do.

I thought of my life at Cambridge. I was lonely and unhappy, tired of constantly looking beyond all that, always minding my studies, burying myself in my books, turning every page, diligently proving or disproving whatever theorems my professors had proposed that day.

I thought of Mercer’s hands soothing me, soothing away the iron bound tension I’d borne most of my life, from the day I was sent away from my family when I was six years old. The bad dreams, every night. For the first time in years I had slept peacefully. And I felt something new: I knew I would not be alone. I felt sure Mercer would be content with remaining friends, at least for now.

I remembered the scratch of Mercer’s pen as he wrote. I got out of bed and went to the desk. There, centered on the desk top, rested a cream-colored origami swan. I thought of the little noise I’d heard from outside and went to the window.

It was an unusually cold morning for the first of November. The windows were rimed with hoarfrost. Mercer sat on a weathered wooden bench set into the hillside below the terrace, facing the east, waiting, I thought, for dawn.

I went downstairs, found my way to the great room, and went outside.

“Good morning,” I said, as I came alongside him.

He didn’t answer me, but wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. I saw he had been crying. We watched the land and sky for a while, not talking.

I broke the silence at last. “Mercer, are you all right?”

He didn’t answer at first, but after a few moments he cleared his throat and began to speak in a quiet voice.

“The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,  
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,  
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,  
And after many a summer dies the swan.  
Me only cruel immortality  
Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms,  
Here at the quiet limit of the world.”

“There’s more,” he said, “but I’ll stop with that.”

He was quoting lines from a poem – _Tithonus_.  Alfred Lord Tennyson. I didn’t know it then. I’ve read it countless times since that morning.

“What is wrong?” I asked, afraid I was the cause of his distress.

“Oh, just the usual. When I come back here, I think of when I was young, when I—"

“You _are_ young,” I said. “You’re not withering in anyone’s arms. Are you saying these things because I—" 

He continued as though I had not spoken.

“— when I thought I would live forever. I thought the world existed for me, that I could live as I wanted, do what I wanted.”

He half-laughed, a sound choked with sorrow. “My father took that life from me. He could not allow me to be what I am. Since then, my entire existence has been an unwelcome eternity. I want to die. But I can’t.” Once more, Mercer wiped his eyes with his hands. “Forgive me for being morose.”

I joined him on the bench. “When did this falling out happen?”

“Years ago. Forever, it seems,” he said.

“Have you tried to reconcile with your father?”

“That is not possible. He is dead.”

“Dead? I’m so sorry.”

“He took his life. I’m not sorry. He took my life from me.”

“But you’re still here, you still have your life, no matter what happened then. I’d like to be your friend. Perhaps it will become something more, if –”

He said. “You should go. You have to get back.”

“What? Go without you? I won't. You really have to come back with me.”

“Actually, I need to stay here, Illya.”

“Look here, Mercer. I can’t leave you in this state.  I’m worried about you, that you might—”

He laughed, “I assure you, I could not possibly harm myself.”

“Well, how will you get back to Cambridge?” I asked.

“I’ll find a way. I’ll visit you again. I promise,” he said. “When the time is right.”

I took his hand in mine, and we said our goodbyes.

I retreated up the hillside, back to the mansion. My shoes and trousers were soaked with dew. When I reached the French doors, I turned back. The dawn was breaking in brilliant swaths of gold and yellow. Mercer remained on the bench, his image shimmering in the dawn’s dazzling light. I lost sight of him and called a last goodbye. He didn’t answer.

I walked through the mansion to the car, and drove down the long, curved drive. I rounded the final bend and caught sight of the gates. They were twisted and broken, half-fallen. I stopped the car and got out, ran to them. They were crusted with rust and dirt, and dried leaves lay trapped in the metalwork.

I spun back around toward the mansion, and –

* * * *

 

 

Illya paused and broke away from Napoleon’s rapt gaze.

“What happened?” asked Napoleon.  

“The mansion was gone,” said Illya. “In its place stood the ruins of a wall, its bricks and stones scattered across the overgrown grass and sod. The hill itself was broken, as though the land had fallen away. I ran up the hill, past the ruins. I shouted his name. There was no bench. No Mercer. Only an empty vista of green beneath the brilliant dawn. The air was still, unnaturally so, as though the very world had stopped. I whispered his name and knew there would be no answer.”

 * * * *

 

“So, there you have it,” Illya said. “I believe I was visited by a ghost that Halloween in Cambridge. And it appears Mercer has come back after all.”

“You can’t expect me to believe this,” said Napoleon.

“I can’t explain it. But I’ve thought about it over the years, often. He never did say how he knew me. He said he’d arranged to have things readied for us, and I took him at his word. I never saw him eat or drink. The food left his plate, and his glass needed refilling, but he never actually picked up his fork or raised his glass.”

“Illya, this is insane.”

“No, it’s not. There’s more. The candles never burned low. We didn’t add wood to the fire. I didn’t question any of it. I saw it, but none of it struck me as unfeasible. It was as though I was under a spell. I truly think I was. I thought Mercer said he was estranged from his father. But over time, I have come to believe he was telling me his father took his life from him – literally – and killed himself in turn. A murder-suicide.”

Illya lifted the note from the file folder. “Mercer folded this message into a swan and left it for me. But I didn’t take it.”

“It was on my desk,” said Napoleon. Why didn’t he put it on your desk? My god.” He buried his face in his hands. “What am I saying?”

Illya re-read the note, then took it to his desk and refolded it. “He said he would visit again when the time was right. Maybe that time is now. Maybe he knows we’re beginning something together. Maybe he wanted to make sure you saw this.” He held the swan out to Napoleon. “That’s my theorem. We can waste a lot of time trying to disprove it, but I don’t—”

Napoleon took the swan. “There’s nothing to disprove.” He smiled at Illya. “I’m sorry about that bit with Marlene. I’d like to make it up to you.”

“Dinner?”

“Absolutely. And later, we could try a little origami...”

 

 

**The End**


End file.
